Atelo [MXB] [BOOK 1] ✓

CHAPTER 42: ROSE

The next two days consist entirely of Marley trying to contact the maid and Nero getting Drey to like him again. Unlike Marley, Nero has actually been succeeding.

Marley sends the maid another text;

Hey, it's Marley, can I call?

Okay so she's probably really freaked out since he's supposed to be dead, but what else is he to do here? He doesn't want to call out of nowhere and be rude. He knows that the majority of the staff get off work at 7 to 8 o'clock (depending on how much work needs to be done) so he could call after that, but he doesn't want to catch her at a bad time.

At the same time, though, she won't fucking answer him.

"So den... you can turn dis on?" Drey asks. Marley glances up from his phone to find Drey and Nero sitting across from each other. Nero has two toy dolls in his hands, and Drey is holding up a lightbulb. The dissected lamp beside her shows exactly where she got it from.

Marley buys her a bunch of toys, but what is her preferred choice of amusement? Absolutely anything but toys. How did she even figure out how to take that apart? It's a whole lamp. Well... unless Nero helped her. He typically refrains from touching electric devices, though. Marley's pretty sure the only device he's seen Nero physically touch (casually) was Marley's phone. Even then, he treated it not unlike one would handle an egg.

Nero reaches out and touches the metal part of the lightbulb. It flickers to red.

Drey stares at it like it's the most fascinating thing she's ever seen.

A vibration from Marley's phone startles him, and he looks down to find that the woman had finally responded.

Please stop contacting me.

Marley frowns at the message. Is it possible that she knows it's him and he's alive, but doesn't want to get mixed up in his whole debacle? That wouldn't make sense, ever since he caught her stealing and didn't tell anyone, they'd been pretty good friends.

Not like they don't already have a bunch of money, and she wasn't stealing anything important, anyway. Though a bit daft, Marley's still a reasonable person, and getting a single mother of three kids fired for something as stupid as theft is not on his to-do list. All he did was ask her not to do it anymore, and she seemed eager to comply. Anyway, it proves to not be a personal issue when she follows it up with;

I don't know how you got his password, but this is just sick.

Oh, okay. So she thinks someone hacked his account. That actually makes more sense. How is he going to convince her otherwise, though?

No it's me I promise, everyone just thinks I'm dead

That's not enough. He sends another.

Remember the thing? And I didn't tell anyone? And you said you owed me a favor?

Can I please just call you?

He takes a deep breath. Hopefully that does it.

Marley's expecting a message response, as well as a bit more time convincing her. He almost jumps in surprise when his phone starts ringing. He looks down at the device,

Rose, flashes across the screen. He hits the green button.

"Hello? Rose?" Marley answers, putting the phone on speaker so everyone can hear it. Nero and Drey are back to messing with dolls. Eli and Lenny are also in the room, playing a card game. However, at Marley's voice, they all look up.

"Oh my god," Marley recognizes through her voice that... well, she'd obviously been crying. Over him? "M-Marley? It really is you?"

Marley has a pretty recognizable voice, so he's glad she agreed to speak on the phone with him. "Yeah." He responds.